Czech brewers have a tradition of making special beers to celebrate special anniversaries. A common way to commemorate the date is to work the founding year into the recipe of the beer itself.

For example, to celebrate the 325th anniversary of Moravia’s Pivovar Vyškov, brewmaster Dušan Táborský created an excellent strong and hoppy pale lager, Jubiler, brewed at an original gravity of 16.80° Plato, to reflect the brewery’s founding year of 1680.

Other Czech beers have taken a similar path.

To mark its founding in 1530, Pivovar Černá Hora released a beer, simply called 1530, brewed at 15.30° Plato. And then there’s U Medvídků’s newish pale lager, 1466, whose original gravity should by now be pretty easy to guess. (Hint: it’s 14.66°).

But to mark this year’s 175th anniversary of its founding back in 1834, Měšťanský pivovar Havlíčkův Brod — better known as Rebel — zigged where everyone else zagged. Instead of brewing its celebratory beer at an original gravity of 18.34° Plato, Rebel took the “175″ from the anniversary and gave it a starting gravity of 17.5° Plato. (Rebel? Maverick!)

And instead of simply calling the brew “1834,” Rebel went the scenic route, by which I meaning the long, loquacious road that leads over the Prolix Pass of the Circumlocutory Mountains, through the Valley of Verbosity and on deep into the Voluble Hills. As far as I can tell, this beer is called “Rebel 175let Extra Strong 17.5 Limitovaná série silného piva,” meaning “Rebel 175-Year Extra Strong 17.5 Limited Series Strong Beer.” At least that’s what’s on the front label, along with the dates “1834–2009.”

Because we’re friends, I’m just going to call it Rebel 17.5°.

The back of the bottle reads, in Czech, “By the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Havlíčkův Brod brewery we have prepared a true specialty. This is the strongest beer that was ever brewed in Havlíčkův Brod. 1834–2009 Limited series of strong beer. Special pale beer.”

So what’s it like?

Interesting, but not something I’d run out and buy a case of. A bit of diacetyl is generally not considered a serious fault in Czech pale lagers, but in this case, it goes too far for my taste, creating overwhelming butterscotch and vanilla notes. Once you get past the diacetyl, it’s got a pleasant, long-lasting bitter finish. In terms of aroma, the front of the house is dedicated to malt, with strong corn and grainy notes. (And unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of Hop Action™ here.) One good note: the alcohol is pretty subtle for a walloping 8%.

To be honest, I think this beer might have been more successful if it had actually been brewed at 18.34°. A wort strength above 18° Plato would lend itself to the style of strong dark lager called “porter” in Czech, meaning a Baltic Porter like Pardubický Porter and Primátor’s Double 24°. Instead, this is a strong pale lager much like Jubiler, but without Jubiler’s hoppiness to balance the sweetness of the malt. And the diacetyl is just too much for me. In this case, the brewery might have taken its name a bit too seriously.

Perhaps something less rebellious and slightly more charismatic for the 200th?

Perhaps most typical of the style are the Vánoční speciál from Pivovar Krakonoš and the Speciál 14% from Pivovar Poutník in Pelhřimov.

Brewed at 14°, the Krakonoš Vánoční speciál has a very moderate 5.8% alcohol (“moderate” considering this is meant to be a winter warmer). The winter-themed label features the Krakonoš giant, the spirit of the Krkonoše, or Giant Mountains, with the number 14 prominently displayed above the brewery’s foundation year of 1582. The label lists water, barley malt, sugar, hops and hop extract as ingredients.

It pours a clear pale gold with a loose white head that fades quite quickly. It has much more carbonation than many Czech lagers and is more than slightly fizzy. It has a nose of grain with a touch of raw corn and honey. In the mouth, there is a sweet, malty kick-start with some light vanilla notes rounding out into a full, buttery mouthfeel and finishing with more than a hint of butterscotch.

It’s very similar to the Speciál 14% from Pivovar Poutník in Pelhřimov, which also has 5.8% alcohol and which also lists sugar as its third ingredient, though unlike Krakonoš, the Poutník beer specifies the use of Saaz hops on the label. In the glass it is a clear light gold with an inconsequential white foam of no duration, and has a fine, fizzy, champagne-like carbonation. The bouquet is of sugar and vanilla with some fruitiness. It has a thin body with a burst of sweetness, some notes of hard candy and tutti-frutti followed by a slightly medicinal finish.

These two beers are probably not for everyone: hardcore beer fans might criticize them for not being interesting or flavorful enough, while Gambrinus drinkers would fault them for being too filling. Regardless, both are fairly typical holiday brews in these parts.

Or perhaps they were typical holiday offerings: today, more and more Czech brewers seem to be making more flavorful brews for the holidays. Much like the Opat and Strahov versions, Pivovar Bašta in Prague is offering a pair of tmavý (dark) and polotmavý (half-dark) Christmas beers brewed at 15°; other small brewers such as Milan Rambousek have produced wonderful strong dark Christmas beers.

We’ll be tasting a bunch of the best this Thursday, December 18, at the Czech Beer Academy’s Christmas beer tasting (RSVP at tel. +420 233 088 612 or via e-mail at moprg-pr@mohg.com). And even more should show up at this weekend’s Christmas Beer Markets, a can’t-miss event for lovers of real beer.

First anniversary: Paper. Fifth anniversary: Wood. Fiftieth anniversary: Gold.

Five hundred and fifty-fifth: One very special lager.

Or at least that’s how it is for Pivovar Rakovník, a Czech brewery originally founded in 1454. To celebrate its 555th birthday next year, Rakovník is adding a “jubilee special” to its Bakalář line of beers. And though 2009 is still most of a month away, the new brew is already available at Pivní galerie.

Bakalář Jubilejní Speciál is brewed at a high-grade 18° Plato, approximately Doppelbock strength, but with slightly less alcohol at 7%, compared to 7.5% or more in a typical Munich Doppelbock. In this case, the alcohol is very well incorporated, meaning you’re not likely to notice it, though it’s roughly akin to drinking two basic lagers simultaneously. The beer is a clear deep amber in appearance with a very fine, very creamy head.

From the bottle, there’s a nice touch of malt and pumpkin-pie spice in the nose; the aromas seemed to be slightly more pronounced when I tried it on tap. In both cases, the mouthfeel is chewy and rich — starting to approximate the syrupy nature of Březňák’s Doppel-Doppel Bock — with notes of cooked plums, maple syrup and cinnamon. The lasting finish has just a slightly bitter hop bite to it.

Overall, it’s a very nice strong beer and rather unique on the Czech market: most special lagers at this strength are lighter in color and far sweeter than this one. It sounds — and tastes — like an excellent way to celebrate an anniversary.

Rakovník brewery has a long and noble brewing history, and was renowned for its bottom-fermented beers, or lagers, when most of the Czech lands were still making the top-fermented beers that we would probably call ales today. There’s even a Latin rhyme from the era that serves as the brewery’s current motto: “Unus papa Romae, unus portus Anconae, una turris Cremonae, una ceres Raconae,” which is said to mean something like “One pope in Rome, one port in Ancona, one tower in Cremona, one beer in Rakovník.” (Latin scholars have hinted that the grammar is questionable, but that’s what’s on the label.)

The back of the bottle gives an indication of where the brewery is going today:

Like many medium-sized Czech brewers, Rakovník is getting by on exports, in this case primarily to Russia. The Prague Daily Monitor is reporting today that Czech beer exports are up 4% over the first nine months of the year, though overall production declined marginally. The Rakovník history article at Pivovary.info quotes management as saying they’re planning on exporting 80% of production; by 2006, the amount going to Russia was three times the size of what Rakovník was selling in its homeland.

So do your part to help a local brewer out. Pick up a few bottles of Bakalář Jubilejní Speciál today.

We’re just back from Munich, where Starkbierzeit kicked off last weekend, running through March 8 of this year. A few notes about the festival whose name means “strong beer time.”

1. With 7.5% alcohol by volume, the beers really are quite strong.

2. The use of the Maß, a 1-liter serving vessel, makes it very easy to underestimate your intake. (When it comes to Starkbier, “I’ve just had two beers” can be parsed as “I’ve just had four half-liters” and in amount of alcohol is equivalent to saying “I just drank six premium lagers.”)

3. If you want to check out people wearing traditional Bavarian costumes — young codgers as well as old — the best spot is outside in the Paulaner beer garden at Nockherberg.

4. Starkbier mostly seems to be a time of year, not a set style, at least not beyond the high original gravity of 18° or more. Some breweries produce an amber strong beer, some golden; some serve crystal-clear beers, some cloudy Naturtrüb versions.

5. The Forschungsbrauerei is one of the smallest breweries around and is a must-see for their St. Jakobus Blonder Bock, an outstanding golden Starkbier brewed at 19.5°, though still finishing with 7.5% ABV. It has more hop notes (with 100% Hallertau, mostly in the form of whole cones) in the finish than most brews in this part of Bavaria. Take the S6 train to the Perlach station and either carry a GPS, use Google maps, or bring a copy of the map on the website.

6. Second-favorite Starkbier: the unfiltered Naturtrüb Unimator at Unions-Bräu. (Nice Helles, too.)

7. Third-favorite Starkbier (and one of the best among the town’s high-volume producers): the malty, deep amber Maximator at Augustiner-Keller, which also had some of the most agreeable atmosphere.

8. Munich is about four hours from Prague by car and just over six hours by train. If you’re here, Bavaria is an easy getaway for a weekend. If you’re there, consider coming here. (Once again, beer travel between Prague, Pilsen, Munich and Bamberg is quite doable.)

I’ll be writing a longer piece about Starkbier for the American drinks and culture magazine Imbibe, but that’s the gist of what I can remember. The well-kept local traditions in Munich are truly impressive, so much so that after a while you feel odd because you’re not wearing Lederhosen. Furthermore, the wonderfully social aspect of a European beer garden is something that I’ve never quite found in America — people can actually get together, make friends with their neighbors, meet up with old acquaintances and celebrate (the end of winter in this case) by raising a mug or two without burning down the neighborhood or shooting anyone, even after knocking back some truly strong stuff. There’s a lesson in this for sure.

Another quick post to catch up on the recent interest in porter, with Zythophile’s excellent report on possible geographic differences in the use of the term and Ron Pattinson’s equally fascinating posts, like this one on historic porter grists, earlier this week. Their focus has been on British and Irish porters, though just a couple of weeks ago Boak and Bailey posted some tasting notes on Baltic porters, a Continental off-shoot that is usually much stronger, while still retaining some of the characteristics of the English original. (At least in the sense that they’re both dark.)

Though we’re far from the Baltics, a few such porters are produced in Central Europe. The Czech Republic’s brewing laws limit the term to those beers made with barley malt and with an original gravity above 18° (resulting in a strength around 7% ABV or more). Pardubický Porter, for many years the lone exemplar, is brewed at 19° and has 8% ABV; similar Czech brews have recently appeared from Pilsner Urquell and Kout na Šumavě.

In Germany, the term can apparently be used for beers that are much closer to a conversational tone, like Lausitzer Porter (4.4% ABV).

This marks at least one instance where the Czechs have no problem trouncing their neighbors to the west.

Lausitzer Porter, Bergquell-Brauerei Löbau (4.4% ABV)
Pours a clear, very dark amber with a gingery, vinous nose. In the mouth, it tastes less like a dark lager than it does a no-name cola: instead of malt there’s an initial Coca-Cola blast followed by a thin body and a cloyingly sweet finish with cherry and hard-candy notes which climax in a weird sourness. Due to the saccharine finish, many testers would probably guess that this is a diet (or “light”) cola. Not particularly beer-like.

In this case, I don’t think British porter or Baltic porter fans would be particularly impressed. Even less encouraging than the taste of their regular porter, Lausitzer’s web site is pushing a new version of Lausizter Porter with strawberry flavoring. It brings to mind Pilsner Urquell’s new “ohne bullshit” ad campaign in Germany, which points out that Pilsner Urquell isn’t flavored with cranberry, lemon or anything else. Bullshit, indeed.

Just a quick post on the wonderful city-owned Pivovar Primátor, which I mentioned a couple of days ago in my contrarian take on Budvar as a good example of an innovative brewery outside the private sector. Last night Primátor held a tasting at Prague’s Pivovarský klub, showing off its full line of beers (pictured above with deservedly happy brewmaster Pavel Kořínek). Although all the beers were worth trying before, last night at least a couple gave the impression of having improved considerably.

To start, Primátor’s excellent 13° polotmavý (5.5% ABV) seemed much sweeter and more richly caramel-flavored than I remembered, well-worth its award for SPP’s semi-dark beer of the year for 2006.

And Primátor’s unusual strong lager, the 24° Double (10.5% ABV), seemed to have a fuller, stickier mouthfeel than before, followed by more lush notes of maple syrup, toasty malt and with a bright, peppermint-like hoppy spike in the finish. This is a deep amber lager, brewed from a mix of Bavarian and caramel malt and a small wheat adjunct, and it’s recommended as much as an ingredient in the kitchen as a beverage on the table. (A slice of bůček, or pork belly, glazed with 24° Double could be an absolute dream.) I’m not sure I prefer it to Březňák’s Doppel-Doppel-Bock, but it’s close.

As he introduced the beers, Mr. Kořínek explained a bit more about the offerings from the brewery.

There is also a small wheat adjunct in Primátor’s unusual 12° English Pale Ale (5% ABV), he said, noting that the brewery gets its ale yeast from Scotland and the Challenger and Goldings hops from England. Importing hops is rather unusual for Czech brewers, surrounded as they are by the best of Saaz, aka Žatec, but Saaz wouldn’t work in this style. It’s worth noting that the English Pale Ale is dry-hopped, as is the new extra-chmelené pivo (extra-hopped beer) from not-so-far-away Pivovar Broumov, also known as Opat.

All in all, Primátor’s beer-and-pony show was impressive. In terms of getting their marketing together, the brewery has a new line of easier-to-read labels. Alan McLeod wrote a great piece about beer labels at A Good Beer Blog yesterday, and it’s something that far too few brewers here think about. (At a tasting of beers from Pivovar Strakonice two months ago, I pointed out that one of their beers didn’t even say “Strakonice” on the front. How on earth are you supposed to inspire brand loyalty if your customers don’t know what brand it is they’re buying? Could you make this any harder for us?)

Since it is 100% owned by the city of Náchod, Primátor annually contributes some 200,000–300,000 Kč (7,700–11,500 euros) to the municipal coffers — not bad at all in terms of creating goodwill. The appreciation was clearly evident at the tasting: most beer presentations do not include spontaneous outbursts of applause, but this one did.

As for further innovation, I asked if Primátor would consider making a lehké pivo (literally “light beer,” brewed at 7° or less and finishing with less than 130 kJ per 100 milliliters, an older style of table beer even more subdued than Lew Bryson’s session beer project). The brewery’s management wouldn’t say yes or no, but they did note that Primátor should announce a new product line sometime this spring. For Czech beer fans, this could be an early Christmas.

The Czech Republic is home to a whole bundle of brews from specific places: known quantities like Pilsner Urquell (from the West Bohemian town of Plzeň) and Budějovický Budvar (from České Budějovice), as well as rarer birds like Žamberk’s fantastic Žamberecký Kanec, Pardubice’s Pardubický Porter, Velichov’s impossible-to-find (but oh-so-worth-it) Velichovský Forman, along with about 500 other truly outstanding local faves. But in the midst of this very rich beer culture, what we don’t have are many brews that are specific to a certain time of year. One of the few exceptions is showing up right about now: Vánoční piva, or Christmas beers.

Occasionally called sváteční piva (holiday beers), Christmas beers are brewed at higher gravities than standard Czech lagers, generally starting at 13° and heading north fast, resulting in slightly (or much) higher alcohol than normal. (It’s cold here, people — we need something to get the blood going.) Unfortunately, these are almost always limited editions and can be very difficult to find, either on tap or in bottles.

But just this weekend, the Vánoční pivní trhy (Christmas Beer Markets) takes place at Prague’s Výstaviště exhibition grounds, serving about a dozen of these unique winter warmers, as well as a one-off special created especially for the festival.

Taking place Friday through Sunday, December 14-16, the Christmas Beer Markets are set to include tastings, seminars on food and beer pairings, a commemorative tasting glass from Sahm, as well as the release of Old Ale, a top-fermented Czech brew with 8.2% ABV. The Old Ale has been brewed especially for the Christmas Beer Markets at Minipivovar Žamberk using a recipe from Jan Šuráň of Pivovarský dům and a blend of eight yeasts selected by David Bryant of Colorado’s Brewing Science Institute. (This is only one of several Czech-American co-productions that have been showing up lately, but more on that another time.)

The hours for the festival are Friday 13-19h, Saturday and Sunday 10-19h. Entry is 25 Kč (about $1.50, or just under €1), with an extra 50 Kč for the Sahm tasting glass. It’s certainly not hard to find: Výstaviště is the very large exhibition grounds in Praha 7-Holešovice, a massive Secession building next to the even-more-massive T-Mobile Arena. It has its own tram stop (“Výstaviště”) and is served by the 5, 12, 14, 15 and 17 trams. If you catch a 17 tram at Staroměstská (direction Sídliště Ďáblice), you’ll be there in about 10 minutes.

The growth of Christmas beers is a welcome addition to our local beer culture: it wasn’t long ago when most brewers here just added a Christmas label to their regular beers without changing the recipe in the slightest. Recently, however, it’s become a time for breweries to show off what they can do with a touch more alcohol and stronger flavors. For example, the Christmas beer currently on draft at Prague’s Klášterní pivovar Strahov is brewed at 19° and ends up with 7.7% alcohol. According to my colleague Max Bahnson, el Filosofo Cervecero, it’s a rich amber in color and is amazingly hoppy in the finish.

By way of contrast, this year’s Vánoční special from West Bohemia’s Chodovar is brewed at 13° and ends up with 5.1% alcohol. It’s a clear deep gold with very mild carbonation, a malty nose and a full malt body and flavor in the mouth, followed by a pleasantly bittersweet finish. However, it’s worth noting that this is exactly the profile of Chodovar’s year-round special, which also is brewed at 13°, and also with 5.1% alcohol. So is this really a Christmas beer, or is it just the standard special with a new label?

The point of this column is to ask exactly that kind of question — and to answer as many such queries as we can. In the coming weeks and months we’ll bring you regular news on beer and brewing from around the Czech Republic and further afield, including a more detailed look at that 19° Christmas beer from Strahov and two new brewpubs set to open in Prague. Got questions? Send ‘em in. Got comments? Post away. Until then, na zdraví!